India, May 23 -- Voice as a primary user interface has shown flickers of promise but has never taken off. Today, with AI at hand, it is still failing to go mainstream.

Approximately 300 years ago, an ancient Arabic folklore became popular globally. Thus came the likely example of perhaps the first-ever voice interface in the world-when the fictional character from Alibaba and the Forty Thieves said to a cave, "Open, Sesame!"

In three centuries, one would have imagined voice interfaces in machines to have become an established order. Countless futuristic science fiction and comic movies have shown the same-look no further beyond Iron Man and his trusted AI assistant, Jarvis. However, even in an era of Alexa, Siri and OK Google, and where...